


there's a fear that won't subside

by meledea



Series: hearts like ours [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Family Feels, Friendship, Gen, Heart-to-Heart, Pack Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-28 13:25:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/992497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meledea/pseuds/meledea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two days before Boyd's first full moon he gets a late night visitor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there's a fear that won't subside

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: credit to the amazing [Sarah](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AllyRose39) for her help!
> 
> Also I took some creative liberties with Boyd's home life, since, really, what do we even know about it?
> 
> Fic title from 'Hearts Like Ours' by The Naked and Famous, which has become my official Boyd/Erica song.

 

‘You’re still up?’

Boyd glanced up from staring blankly at his homework as his dad wandered into the kitchen. He frowned a little at the sheen of sweat on his dad’s face, the damp patches on his tee-shirt. His heartbeat was still a little too fast. _Another nightmare?_

His dad took a glass out of the cupboard, turned on the tap. Turned it off. Boyd winced as the squeak of the knob rang in his ears.

The chair across from him was suddenly occupied, his dad giving him an odd look as he downed the glass. ‘Homework?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You stuck on something?’

Boyd shook his head. ‘Distracted,’ he muttered. He was. He had no idea how anyone could focus on something as mundane as homework with their senses this fucked up. And uncontrollable. He could hear a cat-door open three houses away, soft footsteps way down the street, the ticking of his neighbour’s old clock. He was certain he could smell the lingering sticky residue of the Dr. Pepper that had sprayed a bit on the lounge carpet the other night. Somehow he managed to miss hearing his dad having a nightmare two rooms away though. His frowned deepened.

‘Hmm.’ His dad stood up. The dishwasher opened, closed again with the jarring clink of glass and crockery. ‘Go to bed, kiddo. Can’t have you falling asleep in class or anything. Sleep’s more important than homework.'

Boyd winced at the affectionate term, risking a glance, but his dad was yawning, didn’t seem to have noticed what he’d said. ‘ _Kiddo_.’ Been a while since he’d heard that. He can’t have meant to… could he? He was still half asleep, it had to have been a slip up. Right?

‘Dad?’

He paused in the doorway. ‘Yeah?’

‘You alright?’

The look on his dad’s face twisted deep in his gut – he looked old, sad, haunted. For a moment he didn’t say anything, just stared at the scuffmark on the linoleum. Then he sighed. ‘Go to bed, son.’

He watched his dad go, listened to the bedroom door shut and the click of the light-switch, then rubbed a hand over his face. ‘Dammit.’ He sat there for a while, concentrating, focussing on his dad’s heartbeat, listening to his breathing even out as he drifted back to sleep. Pretty quickly, too. He must have been exhausted after the nightmare.

With a sigh of his own he shut his book and started to pack up. He should at least try to get some sleep, even though he didn’t think he’d get any. Sure, he was exhausted, but he was restless too. His skin felt tight. The full moon was two nights away – his _first_ full moon. Just thinking about it made him tense again, on edge.

There was a gentle knock on the door.

Boyd jumped. He hadn’t heard anyone walk up the path. It was after eleven, and a school night. Nobody should be knocking on the door at this hour. Grumbling to himself, he shut his schoolbook and shuffled to the door.

He wasn’t five feet from the door when he realised who it was, and that took him a little by surprise. He was new to this, after all, still learning to recognise certain heartbeats and smells. He’d only just managed to identify his father’s. Yet, despite the door between them, that scent – of mint and citrus and salt and pine – couldn’t really belong to anyone else. Well, no one else that would come to his door near midnight, anyway. Also he was pretty sure that no one else in all of Beacon Hills could make that combination smell good, so go figure.

Boyd opened the door with an attempt at a casually raised eyebrow, but found his mouth curving despite himself. He couldn’t help it, really. Her presence just made him smile.

‘Hey.’

‘Hey yourself.’ Erica smiled back. It wasn’t her normal cheeky smile though, or even that cheerful at all. She looked nervous. He stood straighter as he took her in – no makeup, unruly hair, plaid shirt unbuttoned over a tight singlet, skinny jeans, ballet flats. She looked a lot less rock chick than she had earlier that day, and more like she’d just rolled out of bed.

He frowned a little. ‘Everything okay?’

‘Yeah, I just…’ her fingers twisted in the hem of her shirt, and she looked down the street at something momentarily before turning back. ‘Can we talk? I need to talk to someone…’

‘Of course, just—’ he paused, looked back over his shoulder towards the bedrooms. He could hear his dad snoring. ‘Let’s just…’ he gestured over her shoulder at the park. ‘D’you mind?’

‘No, no that’s perfect.’

He shut the door quietly behind him, and they walked side by side across the street, vaulting over the fence with ease. The ground was a little damp under his bare feet. He followed her over to a worn patch of grass in the middle of the field where she sat down.

She smiled at him as he sat beside her.

‘I knew you’d still be up.’

He gave a huff of laughter. ‘Yeah, well…’ he looked up at the waxing moon. ‘Kinda hard to sleep at the moment.’

‘Tell me about it,’ she murmured, following his gaze. They were both silent for a minute, watching the sky, before he spoke.

‘So. What’s up?’

She bit her lip, silent. He listened to her heartbeat as he waited for her to talk, memorising the rhythmic patterns of nervous-Erica’s heartbeat so he could recognise it in the future. He wasn’t sure how nervous-Erica would differ from worried-Erica or stressed-Erica, or if this even was nervous-Erica, or if there were any differences at all, but he figured it might come in useful somehow. He stopped listening to her heartbeat when he heard her take in a deep breath, though, and focussed on her voice.

Erica started talking in a rush. ‘You know what the worst thing about epilepsy is? Feeling like you’re not in control of your own body. I mean, like, it’s hard enough going through all this hormonal teenage shit and changing shapes, you know? You already feel like you don’t quite fit your own skin yet. But adding seizures to the mix? Even when you can tell it’s coming, even then…’ she took a shaky breath, ‘even then you’re still not in _control_. It’s like being _possessed_ or something. You wake up somewhere else, aching all over, and people are laughing or looking at you weird and you’re just thinking “what did I do? What happened? _Who was I?_ ” And it’s just… this gap in your memory, _you never get that back_.’

She swallowed, took another breath before continuing. ‘And I was okay with that, to a certain extent. Not knowing.’ Her voice turned bitter. ‘I didn’t need to _know_ what...’ she stopped, went silent, picking at dead grass for a few minutes. He listened to her heartbeat calm down, slowly, then pick up again.

Erica stared up at the waxing moon, lip quivering. Boyd didn’t need to see her eyes to know there were tears there. She was shaking. ‘I don’t know why I thought this would be a good idea,’ she whispered. ‘I was just so excited by the possibility of being _better_ than everyone else for once. _Stronger_ , _faster_ , _fiercer_. The idea that the epilepsy… this fucking curse of genetics, that it could _go away_ , that _I could be fixed_ … I mean, I was terrified _all the time_ , afraid I’d never be able to do normal things. There were times I was afraid to leave the house! And I couldn’t even get my license like everyone else was, because of it. So I didn’t even think about it, you know? What would happen. What it’d be like to… to… _change_.’

Her voice shook. ‘Derek, he… he keeps talking about how we’ll lose control, and I just… I’m _terrified_ , Boyd. What if… what if I’ve just replaced one demon with another?’

He looked over at her then, at her mouth curved down, the tears on her cheek, staring down at the grass. She was still shaking, tight fists pressing into the ground.

He reached over, but then paused for a moment, his hand hovering near her fist, a silent offer of comfort. She quickly took it and entwined their fingers, grip tight but not painful. She was a tactile person, he’d learned that quickly. After hearing her talk it made sense. She was probably too afraid to get close to people, and from what he knew of her parents they weren’t the kind of people who showed affection through touch. Even if they were, sometimes you just needed a comforting physical contact from someone your own age. He knew what that was like. He also knew from experience how hard it could be to get it.

He needed it just as much as she did.

They sat like that, silent, for a long time. It was probably past midnight by now. He could still hear his father snoring, could hear his heartbeat if he concentrated.

Boyd glanced over at her after a while. Her expression was peaceful now, not so distraught. She didn’t seem as afraid anymore. She turned to look back at him, meeting his gaze with bright eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. He smiled softly and gave a nod in return.

They watched the moon move across the sky, the restless itch lessening, calmer in each other’s presence. It was comforting, the silence, the contact, the company. It felt right. Peaceful. He wondered if they could fall asleep out here, on the grass, under the stars. Wondered if it would be like this after full moons. Imagined curling up together, like…

Like…

_Pack._

He squeezed his eyes shut, words forming on his tongue, threatening to burst out of him. Something he suddenly needed desperately to share. He didn’t fight it.

‘I had a younger sister.’

Erica made a soft noise, and he opened his eyes to find her watching him, searching his face. She nodded, hesitating a moment before speaking. ‘Yeah. Alicia, right?’

That took him by surprise. He stared at her, eyes wide.

‘I know.’ She gave him a sad smile. ‘I… remember hearing about it when it happened.’

Boyd was silent, thrown for a moment. Her hand tightened around his again, a silent reassurance. He took a deep breath. ‘Yeah. It… My family hasn’t been the same, since. We don’t… really talk much anymore. Mom’s away on army business a lot, and Dad...’ He glanced back at the house, sighed. ‘Mom used to be real affectionate, real tactile, but Alicia’s…’ he halted, swallowed back the words. ‘It hit her hard. Hit all of us hard, and we just stopped…’

He had to stop, couldn’t go any further. He could smell ice, hear his heart pounding. The ground was white, flat, smooth. Scratched. A small voice echoed in his head. Questions.

_Is she…?_

_Is it…?_  

Movement.

He shook his head violently, clearing his vision. Grass. He was sitting on grass.

Warmth was pressed up against his side – he hadn’t even noticed how cold he was until he felt it. Erica’s hair brushed over his wrist; that woody, minty perfume she wore filled the warm air. She watched him carefully, patient. He focussed on where her thumb moved back and forth against his hand. Touch. _Trust_. He took a deep breath, tried again, a different approach.

‘I loved wolves when I was a kid.’ He watched her face light up, her lip quirk in amusement. He smiled back. ‘We went to this wildlife park up North, back when we were real young, and there were wolves there, and I just became obsessed. I used to read all these books and encyclopaedias and watch these documentaries and try and howl… I went through this whole phase of calling my family “my pack”.’ Erica grinned at him, and he couldn’t help but chuckle a little at his younger self.

‘After everything happened, though, it just… stopped. Family didn’t mean the same thing anymore, because it _wasn’t_ the same. So when Derek offered it, my first thought was that I’d have a _pack_. I didn’t care about the strength, or the healing, or any of that stuff. I just wanted to have that, that _pack_ feeling back, be a part of a family. Have people around me again, who cared for each other. People who always had your back. Have a _family_ again. Have a place to _belong_.’

Boyd stared at the moon, bright and cold. ‘I keep wondering if I’ve made a huge mistake.’

She kept watching him for a few moments, before curling into him more and following his gaze skyward. The stillness that followed was calmer than before, more settled. More personal. Sharing private fears with friends does that, he figured.

He focussed back on her heartbeat, calm and steady, matching his. He watched their breath puff out into the cool air and mingle. Felt the warmth, the comfort they were giving each other. He smiled.

 _Yeah_ , he thought. _Pack_.

‘Boyd?’

He turned and looked at her.

‘I trust you. I trust you, and you trust me, right?’

‘Yeah, I do,’ he nodded. That fierce light was back in her eyes, he noticed. She was fire again, bright and warm.

‘So we’re pack. We are. No matter what pack means to Derek, to us it means this,’ she lifted their entwined hands. ‘We stick together. We’re part of Derek’s pack, but if anything changes, anything at all, we’ll still have each other. _Always_. We’ll be our own pack. Okay?’

‘Yeah, okay.’

She narrowed her eye and leaned close to him. ‘Boyd. I mean it. I’m here for you, always. Pack for you and pack for me mean the same thing. You’re stuck with me. _I’m not going anywhere_.’

He grinned at her. ‘That’s good then. Because if I’ll be damned if I leave you to fight demons alone.’

‘We’ll learn to control this together,’ she promised, grinning back. ‘And we’ll take care of each other.’

‘ _Pack_ ,’ he whispered.

‘Pack,’ she agreed fervently.

 _A place to belong_ , he thought, and grinned wider. ‘We’ve got each others backs.’

‘ _Always_.’

Boyd almost swore he could feel it, then – a bond between them, growing stronger every moment. _Pack._ It thrummed, alive and warm and wild. His eyes flickered gold.

She bared her teeth. ‘The world had better watch out,’ she growled, her eyes glowing back. ‘Because we’re gonna be _unstoppable._ ’

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come visit me on [tumblr](http://meledea.tumblr.com/) where I cry bitterly over dead werewolves and pretend to be a responsible student (and occasionally draw).


End file.
